Getting Cross With the Pope
March 17th, 2009Obama Subterfuge Works Better Than Papal Candor
Shmuel Rabinovitch, rabbi of the Western Wall, says the Pope can’t wear a cross when he visits.
That’s up to him. He’s the boss; he writes the dress code. The wall is Jewish property.
But where was he when Obama showed up at the wall carrying his famous Hindu monkey idol in his pocket? Also, a cynical person might say Obama himself, being the self-anointed false messiah, is a religious symbol.
I suppose you can argue that the monkey idol was not visible, whereas the Pope’s cross is. Does that mean the Pope can please the rabbi by putting the cross in his pocket right before he approaches the wall?
My guess is that the rabbi has no idea Obama carries a Hindu idol around, or that he accepted a huge gold-plated version sent from India. It’s probably in our White House right now, since it’s Obama’s property. This is the kind of “diversity” Solomon favored. Sadly, God felt differently.
Interesting quote from the rabbi:
“I feel the same way about a Jew putting on a tallit and phylacteries and going into a church.”
He may feel that way, but I very much doubt the Pope does. I can’t imagine any Christian, even in a weak mainstream church, telling a Jew to keep his Jewish paraphernalia out of the sanctuary. These days, even Orthodox rabbis sometimes speak in churches, and they don’t have to scrap their yarmulkes.
I don’t think the rabbi feels it would be disrespectful to Christians to wear these things in a church. I know of no basis for such a feeling. The overwhelming likelihood is that he feels it would be disrespectful to Judaism, but he’s trying to convey a different impression, which is pretty disingenuous. On the other hand, maybe he just misunderstands us. Very badly. To a degree which is not really credible.
The Pope should cancel his visit to the wall. Asking a Pope to take off his cross is like asking the rabbi to take off his yarmulke or work on Saturday. It would be a tacit yet undeniable and unambiguous denial of faith. Part of the Pope’s job is to profess and symbolize belief in Jesus. If he took off the cross, he would be letting down every Christian in the world. He would be telling us it’s okay to hide your faith in order to avoid trivial social awkwardness.
He can have a nice visit and mend fences without going to the wall. He showed respect by asking to go; that’s good enough.
The world is not ready for Papal visits to the wall. That’s the bottom line.
March 17th, 2009 at 1:41 PM
I think the rabbi is out of line, myself. Ridiculous.
March 17th, 2009 at 6:07 PM
“These days, even Orthodox rabbis sometimes speak in churches”… I don’t know any who speak in sanctuaries.
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“Does that mean the Pope can please the rabbi by putting the cross in his pocket right before he approaches the wall?”… probably. Israel isn’t Saudi Arabia where concealed Bibles and crucifixes are confiscated upon entry. No, we’re quite content to not protest how our State Department whores itself for the Wahhabists who believe “first the Saturday people then the Sunday people” as reported “In the Muslim City of Bethlehem,” New York Times Magazine, December 24, 1995. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Peace/christianpal.html#56 Pity Pat Robertson never gained traction with his desire to nuke Foggy Bottom: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=21224 We are idle and complacent while our enemies metastasize on our own soil: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/03/17/despite-revising-islamic-history-books-saudi-academy-faces-criticism/
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“My guess is that the rabbi has no idea Obama carries a Hindu idol around,”… I’ve never met a Jew who knew that story, sadly.
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“or that he accepted a huge gold-plated version sent from India. It’s probably in our White House right now, since it’s Obama’s property.”… I am pretty much certain that few rabbis know of this. BTW, one of Obama’s first acts as POTUS was to remove a bust of Winston Churchill, insulting Great Britain, whom most Americans consider our greatest ally:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/4623148/Barack-Obama-sends-bust-of-Winston-Churchill-on-its-way-back-to-Britain.html
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“I can’t imagine any Christian, even in a weak mainstream church, telling a Jew to keep his Jewish paraphernalia out of the sanctuary.”… at the far-left Cathedral of St. John the Divine, I was told to take my cap off in 1984. Jews don headcoverings for worship and to show that they are always servants of God. Don’t know where the custom of removing a headcovering came to be de rigeur in churches.
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Given how the Church in all its forms has treated Jews from the year 50 to the year 1945 and that even this Pope has difficulty dealing a smack-down to his clergy who deny the Holocaust, and that this Pope wishes to wrest the Temple Mount from the Jews by internationalizing Jerusalem, forgive us a little skepticism that this visit is for our benefit. When the Vatican invites the Chief Rabbis of Israel to accept stolen Jewish treasures, that would be a reasonable FIRST step of making amends. Imagine a pagan who owns many of your family’s most precious and irreplaceable heirlooms and wanting to wear the symbols of his belief and expects to be welcomed graciously into your home. No, the first step is for him to return what was stolen, THEN ask forgiveness, THEN ask to visit in peace.
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Decanonize some of the saints who said these words:
http://www.yashanet.com/library/fathers.htm Were they even Christian or not? Are they saved while my children will be punished for eternity?
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Sorry, this Pope hasn’t yet earned the right to visit the remants of the Jews’ holiest site and I can’t imagine rabbis who would have allowed Obama’s idols had they known.
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Frankly, the Pope and Hillary would do the world a lot of good if both demanded to set foot ANYWHERE in the city of Mecca and to demonstrate that under no circumstances are we dhimmis tolerated on Muslim soil.
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I bet if the Pope wants to wear his cross and visit the Dome of the Rock, there’d be protests, too. He’s too smart to ask. But he thinks he can still humiliate the Jews because it takes no courage to do that.
March 17th, 2009 at 7:08 PM
“at the far-left Cathedral of St. John the Divine, I was told to take my cap off in 1984”
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I am sorry to hear that, because that is idiotic. I suspect they would welcome Muslims in khaffiyahs.
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“Given how the Church in all its forms has treated Jews from the year 50 to the year 1945 and that even this Pope has difficulty dealing a smack-down to his clergy who deny the Holocaust, and that this Pope wishes to wrest the Temple Mount from the Jews by internationalizing Jerusalem, forgive us a little skepticism that this visit is for our benefit.”
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I don’t know if this Pope is in your corner or not. His performance with the Holocaust denier was unacceptable. Is he really trying to divide up Jerusalem? It would not be a shock, given the leftist bias of most mainstream churches.
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“Decanonize some of the saints who said these words”
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Don’t get me started on the saints. How an institution like that could begin is beyond me. Many Christians believe it was a sop to the pagans, to replace the pantheon.
March 17th, 2009 at 7:40 PM
Keffiyehs and Che shirts are probably the norm from visiting Art History students of Columbia and elsewhere.
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Re Catholic designs to divide Jerusalem: http://www.thetrumpet.com/index.php?q=6033.4423.0.0
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“For Benedict XVI to identify the scriptural promise to Abraham with Abraham’s descendents, for example, the present state of Israel, would present formidable problems. Today’s Europeans, in their desire to appease the burgeoning Muslim population within their borders, consider Israel a greater danger to world peace than the states that Washington deems terrorist. Slightly over half of Germans, according to a recent poll, believe that Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians is no better than the Nazis’ treatment of the Jews, a response suggesting the projection of Germany’s own war guilt. The great majority of the Italian Curia favors the Palestinian rather than the Israeli side, and the Vatican still objects to the Israeli claim of Jerusalem as it capital, demanding instead that Jerusalem become an international city.”
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/GE10Aa01.html
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Let’s see if this Pope insists on reciting the Tridentine Mass which calls for the conversion of Jews. A “love” that requests change in belief by the recipient is a love that is, by definition, deeply flawed by being conditional.
March 17th, 2009 at 8:29 PM
“Also, a cynical person might say Obama himself, being the self-anointed false messiah, is a religious symbol.”
Because I am a cynical person, whenever Obama shows up in the news making a speech (teleprompter in tow), I can’t help thinking of Herod Agrippa being struck down for allowing people to proclaim him as a God.
March 17th, 2009 at 10:02 PM
“Decanonize some of the saints who said these words
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I’m surprised to see Augustine on that list. Also, the insertion of “(the Jews)” seems to be editorial and not in the original text; I read Augustine’s Confessions a couple of decades ago and I’m trying to remember where I put the book so I can verify the original text, but its going to take awhile. (I can’t seem to find “Confessions” in its entirety on the web either…surely it’s in the public domain by now???)
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Going back to the quote:
“How hateful to me are the enemies of your Scripture! How I wish that you would slay them (the Jews) with your two-edged sword, so that there should be none to oppose your word! Gladly would I have them die to themselves and live to you!”
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The Reference to the “two-edged sword” is most likely a reference to Hebrews 4:12’s imagery of the Word of God as a “two-edged sword” and not a physical slaying:
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http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hebrews%204:12;&version=31;
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Evidence of this intrepretation is “Gladly would I have them die to themselves and live to you!” The “them” seems to be “the enemies of (His) Scripture”.
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I won’t get Steve started on “the saints” (well, mostly because I agree), and a number of the quotes presented were clear enough in intent (horribly so in some cases). Not all Christianity believes as Luther, et al.
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Aaron, please do not take this as criticism of your point, I think it was well made overall; I’m just curious about the Augustinian quote as it seems out of character for what I remember, and I couldn’t seem to verify it with actual text from “Confessions”.
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Guess I’ll be doing some research and digging through my “boxes of books” in the basement…
March 17th, 2009 at 10:21 PM
Okay, for anyone who is interested, I found the full text of “Confessions” at:
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http://www.ccel.org/ccel/augustine/confessions.xv.html
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The quote is under the heading of Chapter XIV.
March 20th, 2009 at 6:44 PM
“I don’t know any who speak in sanctuaries.”
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Forgot to point this out. Yechiel Eckstein speaks at churches.